Bolivia: Opposition Governor Is Jailed For 4 Months Sparking Protests In The Region

First modification: 01/01/2023 – 14:50Last modification: 01/01/2023 – 14:55

A report by Raphaël Moran

In Bolivia, the governor of Santa Cruz Luis Fernando Camacho, a radical opponent of the left-wing MAS government, a 43-year-old lawyer and businessman, will remain in preventive detention for 4 months. This was decided on December 30 by a judge alleging a flight risk. Camacho was charged with “terrorism” for his role in the riots that led to the ouster of former President Evo Morales from the presidency in 2019.

Santa Cruz It is one of the nine departments that make up the State of Bolivia, being the department with the greatest economic importance in Bolivia. Its capital and most populous city is Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Arrested this week in Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho was one of the right-wing opposition figures (Creemos party) who promoted the resignation of Evo Morales from the presidency in 2019. While the ruling party accuses him of a coup, Camacho’s relatives affirm to the contrary that his conduct was legitimate in response to alleged fraud in the 2019 election.

Zvonko Matkovic interview for RFI

In Holy Cross, the president of the departmental Assembly Zvonko Matkovic (from the Creemos party that Camacho leads) denounces the way in which Luis Fernando Camacho was arrested on December 28 and describes him as kidnapping:

“The operation in which this was carried out cannot be described in any other way than that of a kidnapping because he was executed by undercover policemen, disguised as civilians, they broke the windows of his vehicle, they attacked him, they threw him into the ground, they handcuffed him, in the same way to his assistant, they assaulted her, they have taken him to the City of Peace, to the seat of government, more than two thousand kilometers away and now, in a military helicopter, then This has been a joint action between the police and the military to kidnap an elected authority from a department and now a judge, of course, who is acting under the approval and evidently with the pressure of the executive branch.”

The Bolivian justice ministry rejected the kidnapping accusations and affirms that the arrest is due to the fact that Camacho never appeared to testify in court.

During the hearing, which was held through an Internet platform, Camacho declared: “I’m never going to give up.”

The opposition leader called on Bolivians to prevent “Masismo from imposing a dictatorship like in Venezuela and Cuba,” alluding to the ruling party Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). La Paz, Caracas and Havana are political allies with leftist administrations.

After the hearing, the governor was transferred with a strong security device from a police station to the Chonchocoro prison, in the pampa of the Bolivian Andes, west of La Paz, according to images broadcast on television.

In the city of Santa Cruz, the economic capital of the country and with almost 2 million inhabitants, there have been blockades of streets and avenues, to demand that its governor be released.

Reactions to Camacho’s arrest

Florencia Soto Niño-Martínez, deputy spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement that he “is concerned about recent events in Bolivia.”

The influential Bolivian Episcopal Conference said in a statement that the detention “violates the laws [y] human rights” and which, moreover, “has brought to the collective memory the hard times of military dictatorships that were believed to have been defeated forever”.

(With AFP)

Listen here to Raphaël Moran’s report for RFI: